


The Stone of Doors: The Cobbled-Together Draft of Book Three from the Far-Flung Future

by Karimshot



Category: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Book 1: The Name of the Wind, Book 2: The Wise Man's Fear, Other, Satire, the doors of stone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28171530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karimshot/pseuds/Karimshot
Summary: A draft of book three was thrown through a crack in time. The few parts that survived the journey were stitched together by ardent fans. You'll have to fill in the blanks.
Relationships: None
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	The Stone of Doors: The Cobbled-Together Draft of Book Three from the Far-Flung Future

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't sexy fanfiction, an attack on "The Kingkiller Chronicle" or Patrick Rothfuss, or commentary on book three not yet being available. It's a silly little thing I wrote for a friend that amused people when he posted it to /r/KingkillerChronicle. The light, easy fun I'm making of it isn't an indictment: it comes from a place of love for the books, and the jokes are for people who know "Kingkiller" well enough to pick up on them. Pat Rothfuss can take as long as he wants.

# 

_Cover by Meimpink_

# Prologue: A Silence of Three Parts

It was dawn. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was an empty, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind, it would have howled and called, seeped beneath the wooden door, and rattled the windowpanes, frightening the silence away. If there had been guests, just a handful, they would have woken with the rising sun, and in their movement and the clatter and clamour, in the fire kindled for a hot breakfast, the silence would have thawed and trickled away with the frost. If there had been music...but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

Outside the Waystone a dark-haired man waited by the wooden door. He was still yet furtive, and if there had been anyone there to see his face, they would have thought him mad. In his stillness he added a small, terrible silence to the larger, empty one. They made a composite of sorts, a counterpoint.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened long enough, you might begin to feel it in the cold wooden floorboards and in the ash of the previous night's fire. It lay in the still kegs of cider beneath the bar and the polished glass atop, in the brass taps reflecting the first light of morning. It was in the ache and bruises that covered the body of the man rising from a taproom chair and grimacing against the pain.

The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved to contemplate the sword above the bar with the subtle certainty of one putting things to rest.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

# Chapter 1: The Wise Man's Fear

Bast eyed Chronciler wearily. "Oh, come on."

"I'm just saying," said Chronicler, raising his hand. "It didn't make any sense. No self-respecting adult would have used such a term."

Bast opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

They heard the unmistakable sound of the innkeeper's footsteps thumping down the stairs. A second later, he revealed himself through the doorway. His hair was dark red and messy, and his eyes were bright.

"Reshi," said Bast, with a tone like a child addressing his father. "Could you tell this ink-spotted idiot that the phrase 'daft bint' _can_ be applied to men?"

The innkeeper opened a blue-green bottle and drained it in a long swallow. "Tehlu's body, how long did I speak yesterday?"

Bast and Chronicler exchanged a look. "About all day," said Bast.

"My throat feels like it's on _fire_ ," said Kote. He opened another bottle and sniffed it before downing it, too. "Like I'd spoken without stopping for about forty hours or so."

# Chapter 2: The Ever-Moving Loon

"Aye," said Graham, shaking his head. "I saw Abby Leodin walking around the other night, muttering to himself."

Kote nodded slowly. "Did he howl at the moon?"

Graham's expression was dark. "So you've seen it."

"No. The man's always been a bit of loon," said Kote, and surprised Graham with a smile. "Get it? Loon?"

Graham groaned a bit, rubbing at his face.

# Chapter 30: A Barbarian Custom

They called Renere "the three-party city." I had imagined it divided like Severen, but even from a distance I could see I'd been mistaken. I asked Owen about it.

"Aye, for its three Prince Regents," he said. "It's a right mess there."

"There are three regents?"

"And a sickly king, though I wouldn't go branding that about," said Owen, moving his hat back over his head. "Every two-penny lord in this town carries a sword and they love to use it."

"They'd attack me for speaking ill of the king?"

"Some of them would do it because you're a Ruh." I felt myself grow angry, but he was smiling ruefully at me and I relaxed. "But yes. Anything to curry favour. One of those princes is going to be king someday, and everyone hedges their bets."

I understood. "So when the new king takes the crown..."

"Those that supported him get new lands or titles." He shook his head. "It's been terrible this whole year. The rich play their little games and it's us poor folk what suffer."

I thought this over carefully. "And they're all superstitious folk around these parts."

At this Owen looked uneasy, but nodded. "What was that thing you did with the fire last night? Binding? Don't be doing that around these parts." He looked me in the eye. "You're wading into dangerous waters. You never know what you'll have to do to survive this place..."

# Chapter 37: Survive

The stakes couldn't have been higher.

"Listen up," said Agatha. "Today, we'll be learning to make _pie_. Meat pie, apple pie, they all start out the same. If you want to survive the Royal Renere Culinary School, you'll have to learn the basics." She rolled up her sleeves. "Now watch and learn."

I got ready to. Everything depended on it.

# Chapter 38: Only a Fool

"Alright," said Agatha, walking up and down the row, eyeing each student. "I want you all to say it again. Po _mace_. _Pomace_. You gut the apple, ya make a barrelful of cider, chuck the core, and what do you get?"

"Pomace," we all repeated in a drone.

"It takes a thrice-accursed fool to forget that word," said Agatha, spitting on the ground. "So don't you forget it."

# Chapter 50: Elbow Grease

Agatha doused the fire out with a big wad of spit. It was marvellous, really. She had transformed something disgusting into an art form.

 _"Get back to it, you lousy bell-ends!"_ she yelled. "It's almost dinner-time!"

"Yes, Chef!"

" _Sous-chef_ Kvothe!" she yelled, making her way to me. "Put some elbow grease into it!"

"Yes, Chef!"

" _Stir_ , you accursed pillock!"

"Yes, Chef!"

I grit my teeth and continued stirring the sauce, the thick brown liquid pooling down the side. It was the only way to save Princess Ariel.

# Chapter 60: Interlude — Pride

Kvothe nodded. "It was my proudest moment. If I could still play music, I'd sing about that joy."

Chronicler opened his mouth and then closed it, unsure if this was a joke.

It was Bast that ventured. "Not the eternally-burning lamp?"

Kvothe threw his head back and laughed. "The lamp was child's play, in the end." He moved his hands apart to indicate size. "But the _wedding cake_? It made the bakers weep."

"And it worked to save Princess Ariel?" said Bast. "You saved her using that cake?"

Kvothe nodded. "Then I went back to the cooking school for a few years," he said.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Chronicler. "Why?"

"I like to see things to the end," said Kvothe, grinning.

He gestured at the Waystone with a flourish. "Besides, where else would I have learned to run an inn? Begging for coins in Tarbean? No." He flexed. " _Elbow grease_."

# Chapter 63: Interlude — The Darkest Secret

"Reshi means _what?_ " said Chronicler, horrified.

Bast finished buttoning-up his trousers. "Surely you knew? Not even a manling could be _that_ daft."

"All this time, I wondered," said Chronicler, shaking his head. "But I didn't think... I'd have never _guessed_..."

"Come now, Devan," said Bast. He bared his teeth in a smile. "A blind man could have--"

He never finished the sentence. Chronicler turned and ran. Bast saw him streak out of the garden and fall into a ditch. He lay there, sobbing into the soil. A moment later, he was violently sick.

" _Well_ , then," said Bast.

# Chapter 64: Interlude — Reshi

"He was messing with you," said Kvothe, barely able to keep his smile hidden. "It just means 'chef' in Vintic."

# Chapter 90: Swatted Fly

I kicked down the door, a shotgun on each arm. Cinder stood blinking in the sudden light, his skin bright in the day.

"Well, Ferule," I said, bringing both barrels up to his chest. "It looks like you're about to be fer- _really-dead_."

He unsheathed his sword from its scabbard, a dull, unremarkable thing that swallowed the light and cut the air as he tested it. "Little pup," he said, his porcelain smile gleeful. "I should have known it'd be you after the harper."

"Where's Denna?"

"Denna?" said Cinder. "Is _that_ what you called her? _Denna_ was singing entirely the wrong sort of songs." He moved to the side. Behind him, I could see the hanging selas leaves through the glass window. "And she kept harping on, if you catch my drift."

I cocked both guns, exactly as I'd seen Auri do, thankful that my time in Ademre had given me the bicep mass to do it.

I let _those_ guns let him catch _my_ drift. In the sleeveless shirt the tinker had given me, they bulged.

Cinder's expression didn't change. Even then, it was the face a nightmare wore.

He ran at me faster than I could blink, as fluid as quicksilver, as graceful as a dancer. But no dancer could withstand a double barrel blast of Kilvin's finest, and as his sword came at me I unloaded lead. Cinder splattered against the back wall like a swatted fly as his sword slid across the floor. If he could have said anything, he would have, but I blew off his head just to be sure he wouldn't.

"It's harp _ist_ ," I said. I picked up the sword and left.

# Chapter 91: The Penitent King

Wil and Haliax were still at the cake-eating contest, where Wil was eating the cakes while doing pushups to assert dominance. I spotted Abenthy and Hemme in the crowd. Hemme was, again, completely nude...


End file.
